The 4-H USDA Robotics Digital Badges initiative is a collaborative badging effort between the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 4-H National Headquarters/USDA, and Auburn University. Over the course of badge system development, Auburn University focused on the project’s technical side, while University of Nebraska-Lincoln played a role in developing assessments and curriculum. 4-H described, “The Nebraska faculty has developed an outstanding suite of robotics learning experiences supported through almost $5 million in grants from the National Science Foundation (#ESI-0624591 and DRL-0833403), the NASA Summer of Innovation, and 4-H. These learning experiences will serve as the core content for the 4-H Robotics digital badging system for youth ages 9 to 18.

A Hewlett Foundation and Gates Foundation Project Mastery grantee, the non-profit organization Asia Society collaborated with ShowEvidence to develop Pathways to Global Competence. This is a proficiency-based badging system for high school students. The project aimed to engage learners in “powerful, relevant, and self-directed [ways] as they master skills and knowledge enabling them to develop their identity as a global youth leader” (HASTAC). The badging effort aimed to expand students’ cross-cultural knowledge and enhance their understanding of global issues.

Badges allow recognition of learning that occurs across contexts, but this presents challenges for assessment. This case study details how UC Davis’ Sustainable Agriculture & Food Systems program is designing an assessment system to match the ambitious goal of recognizing learning that students build up over many experiences in different contexts.

Sweet Water AQUAPONS is an online platform where students gain digital badges as they learn the skills needed in aquaponics. The Sweet Water Foundation (SWF) developed AQUAPONS to provide self-directed learning opportunities to future sustainable agriculture practitioners and expand the field of aquaponics by creating a replicable model for urban agriculture education.

The Sustainable Agriculture & Food Systems is a new interdisciplinary major that integrates a portfolio system featuring digital badges. UC Davis’s Agricultural Sustainability Institute (ASI) and College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences developed “a model of learning, participation, and assessment focused around high-level ‘core competencies’ that bridge classroom and real-world experiences, academic investigations and concrete skills. We believe this model has the ability to train leaders who will transform the food system, changing the way each of us eats and lives.”

Regardless of where you start, it’s more than likely you’ll end up somewhere other than your intended destination. That’s okay. Systems are living things, and your badge system needs to be flexible. You must embrace a bit of chaos in its design.
-Carla Casilli, Director of Design + Practice at the Badge Alliance